Review: Three Violent People

Ranch owner Charlton Heston comes back home after serving in he Civil War. Arriving with a new wife (Anne Baxter) who has a ‘disreputable’ past, he is faced with greedy land grabbers (Bruce Bennett and Forrest Tucker) and an embittered, one-armed brother (Tom Tryon). Gilbert Roland plays the easy-going ranch foreman, whilst Elaine Stritch turns up as a friend and co-worker of Baxter’s.

 

Strong, sometimes moody 1956 western from director Rudolph Maté (“The Far Horizons”, “Miracle in the Rain”) pretty much fires on all cylinders and deserves to have more eyes on it. The vibrant colour cinematography by Loyal Griggs (“The Ten Commandments”, “Shane”) is an immediate highlight here, the film looks absolutely stunning. Heston is as Heston does, an underrated actor he’s typically muscular and manly. However, he gets his thunder stolen here. The women are terrific here, particularly Elaine Stritch in a smallish part. In fact, one of the film’s few sore spots is that she’s not in the film enough. Anne Baxter is good fun (but takes a back seat in the second half), but Stritch steals every second she can. Another minor sore spot is that the relationship between Heston and Anne Baxter seems to develop at Ludicrous Speed. I liked the little bits of comedy early on though, where fist fights seemed to break out at a moment’s notice. Tom Tryon is better here than in “The Cardinal”, perhaps because he doesn’t have Otto Preminger dressing him down constantly. Apparently Heston felt Tryon was miscast, and I’m sure Tryon being bisexual had nothing to do with that of course. Seriously, Chuck clearly had personal beef with the actor because there’s nothing wrong on screen with him here. I don’t think he was miscast at all, in fact he’s quite fine. He’s particularly effective in making you want to see someone tear off his other arm. Tryon's a total shithead here, embittered and likely self-hating. However, I was more impressed by the women but also by Forrest Tucker in a villainous part in particular. He’s in great form. Gilbert Roland is full of charisma too, but I found it laughable that we were meant to buy Jamie Farr, Robert Blake, and Ross Bagdasarian as his sons. They don’t look like him, they don’t look like each other. They don’t look like they come from the same ethnic background. It’s bizarre.

 

A really strong, interesting western that’s better than some of the bigger-name westerns out there. The screenplay is by James Edward Grant (“The Alamo”, “Circus World”), from a story by Leonard Praskins (20 episodes of “Wagon Train”) and Barney Slater (“Cahill: U.S. Marshal”).

 

Rating: B